


spring again

by daeyeols (sungyeols)



Category: Golden Child (Korea Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 18:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18816187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungyeols/pseuds/daeyeols
Summary: This Sungyoon is different from the Sungyoon he first saw months back.





	spring again

 

He meets a guy named Choi Sungyoon in the beginning of summer.

He’s somewhere around 19, awkward and quietly sweating under the summer heat. Sungyoon was 17 and he moved next door along with his parents and older sister. He was short for teens around his age, prominent bunny like teeth standing out every time he talks. He’s got brown shaggy hair, and he wasn’t that pretty in Daeyeol's opinion. To say he was loud was an understatement. He never stopped talking about stuff and complained a lot, he finds out from his mom. He barely stayed at home and Daeyeol always saw him hanging out downtown, where the dubious kids usually stick around. Sungyoon doesn’t talk to him despite doing so with every other person in the small town they live in. Daeyeol isn’t really fond of speaking, and he prefers watching.

During the summer he loved going to the community swimming pool with Sungyeol, his older brother. They would go there riding their bikes and jumping headfirst in the pool, soaking up in all the chlorine to relieve the summer heat. Halfway the summer, Sungyoon begins appearing in the community swimming pool. Apparently, he’s the new summer lifeguard. His mom probably forced him to do it instead of associating himself with the trouble making kids Daeyeol loves avoiding. Daeyeol didn’t mind him as he swims to the deeper part of the pool and Sungyoon blows his whistle to a kid that began a fight in the middle of the other pool (since there were 2).

Daeyeol watches Sungyoon fret around the kids running at the slippery side of the pool and yell at teens who try to make trouble there.

Daeyeol can’t help it, but he keeps on noticing the trickling sweat on Sungyoon's forehead, racing down to his long neck and tank top donning torso when he sits beside the poolside after scolding a teenager who pushed his friend in the pool despite warnings. Sungyoon finds him staring but did not pay attention much, shifting his eyes to the other side.  

 

ㅡ

 

When fall came and school started, Sungyoon was more subdued.

Daeyeol sees him in school during the first day. Daeyeol originally thought Sungyoon was a junior or sophomore already, but apparently he had to repeat as a freshman. Daeyeol overheard it from one of his girl classmates who are already gushing about the new guy.

Their town was small and it was about time most of the young people found out about the mystery man.

Rumors circulate, that Sungyoon was a problematic student, that he pushed drugs, that he assaulted someone with a hidden blade in his wallet that’s why they had to move to this town and start anewㅡdifferent stories that Daeyeol knows were solely made for entertainment of the majority.

His first conversation with Sungyoon actually happens a week after school began. It’s windy, and Daeyeol is walking back home. He couldn’t ride his bike back home because the tire was flat and he hadn’t gotten the chance to have it fixed. There were footsteps approaching, and before Daeyeol could turn around he sees that it’s Sungyoon.

“Walk with me.” the younger male orders him before Daeyeol could even exhale.

Daeyeol tries a conversation starter. They’ve already passed two streets before he finally asks.

_“Why?”_

“I’m trying if they wouldn’t bother me if I was with you.”

Daeyeol wants to ask why again, but he decides not to. It’s true that no one bothers with him. He’s quiet and they find him weird when he ends up staring at blank spaces, and he’s not also welcoming of other people. But really, no one just tried to.

Until Sungyoon.

Daeyeol doesn’t question Sungyoon's daily appearance on his walks back home then. Sungyoon talks to him and asks him things, and he replies curtly.

What’s your favorite color? Purple.

What’s your favorite genre of music? Acoustic.

Who's your favorite Avengers member? Iron Man.

What’s your favorite past time? Reading books.

Daeyeol doesn’t ask him a question. It’s not that he isn’t curious. He just isn’t sure how to ask him.

 

ㅡ

 

This Sungyoon is different from the Sungyoon he first saw months back.

His usual brown shaggy hair is now peppery red (he’s confused as to why the school allows this to be honest), and it’s swept nicely on his head despite its growing length. His eyes appear more calm and relaxed. He’s still talkative, but not as much and he’s got that laid back and resolved aura around him that Daeyeol wants to bask in. This Sungyoon doesn’t complain, and this Sungyoon keeps on prodding him to tell his most favorite cartoon. Daeyeol keeps on saying its Bonobono, but Sungyoon still keeps on asking as if it's the world’s most important question. Daeyeol has never had an actual friend before, so this was new.

“I like you, even though most of the time it’s like talking to a wall.” Sungyoon tells him one afternoon where it surprisingly rained and they’re under some bus stop drying their uniforms because they both forgot their umbrella. He looks at the younger male wide eyed, and Sungyoon is smiling at him. It’s the first time he’s seen him genuinely smile like that and it makes Daeyeol's insides warm up despite his cold wet uniform sticking in his body. His bunny teeth stick out and his eyes turn into little crescents.

 

ㅡ

 

Sungyoon has his birthday, and Daeyeol gives him a personalized t-shirt. Sungyoon ruffles his hair and wears the shirt for the rest of the day, even as he blew the candles in his birthday cake.

They become closer, to the point where he spends his afternoons to evenings in Sungyoon's houseㅡin Sungyoon's room, listening to music and hitting each other with pillows or napping on the carpeted floor. It varies every time, and it’s the kind of constant change that Daeyeol begins to like. He finds a word for it. Variety.

Daeyeol has come to accept sometime at this point that he likes Sungyoon too.

Sungyoon makes sure that is properly established when he kisses Daeyeol under the tree in the park, while it’s windy and there are leaves rustling almost everywhere. Daeyeol stood there like a plank, and Sungyoon laughed at him when he pulls back.

_“I didn’t know how.”_ he tells him. Sungyoon chuckles and pulls him in an embrace.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll learn when we keep doing it.”

_“Are we going to kiss again?”_

“If you want to.”

_“I want to. If it makes you smile more, then I want to. I like it when you smile.”_

“I like it when you smile too, Daeyeol hyung.”

It was the best autumn of Daeyeol's life.

 

ㅡ

 

 

Sooner than later the leaves from the trees have all changed and fallen, and the first snowfall says hello to their town.

Sungyoon doesn’t walk back home with him from school. In fact, he hasn’t seen him since the snow first began falling. It was weird, because the day before that, they even spent their time watching some dumb Youtube video and laughing about it. Now, the window in Sungyoon's room is shut tightly, in contrast to the rest of the windows in their house.

No one has seen Sungyoon for a week now, even in school. Rumors begin to circulate again, and it’s not the good kind either. Daeyeol blocks them out and refuses to listen to them even though almost everyone is talking about it. No one bothers asking him about Sungyoon, and it’s for the best, because he doesn’t know what he will say either.

When Sungyoon returns to school, it’s like everyone stopped breathing.

He’s got hair that spills in his shoulders, and that’s not even the first thing that stands the most out of it. It’s silver, like the moonlight. Silver like a bullet, bright and shining silver like those expensive tea sets people usually give in weddings. His calm and relaxed eyes now look sad and dead, and he doesn’t talk to people. He doesn’t talk to Daeyeol. He looks like he doesn’t eat, and his skin clings to his bones. He sees him when they pass by each other in the hallway, but it's as if Daeyeol was a ghost in Sungyoon's life.

He doesn’t cry, because he promised he would never. But there are nights where he peers from his window and sees Sungyoon coming home at 1 in the morning, minimal clothing on outside a very snowy neighborhood, alone and visibly drunk. He wants to go there and hug him and beg him to talk to him again while they warm up Sungyoon’s visibly shaking frame from the cold. Daeyeol doesn’t do it. He couldn’t find the courage to do it, so he stands there holding the curtain staring at Sungyoon fumble for the keys in the front door.

He wonders if it was him, if he said something or did something that upset Sungyoon greatly. He looks in the mirror and looks at his overgrown hair and scrawny teenage body. He sits in his bedroom floor and wonder if it was his meek and quiet personality. Wonders if it was about anything at all. It leaves him with a headache that no pill can relieve, and a heartache no sleep can cure.

It’s like the longest winter of Daeyeol's life.

 

ㅡ

 

 

It takes forever when it becomes spring. He spends his birthday with his family and no one asks about Sungyoon. No one talks about him either. Daeyeol can feel that they want to ask him about it but they don’t, which is why Daeyeol loves them. He receives a new book from his brother, and his parents promise him money to buy what he wants. He ends up with a new pomeranian a week later, and names him Rookie.

Rookie accompanies him in the transition nights, where it still feels like winter, but outside it’s actually spring.

It’s three weeks after his birthday that Sungyoon appears in front of their doorstep.

The first thing he notices is that the long silky silver hair is gone now, and was replaced with a strong jet black color.

“Are we still friends?” Sungyoon asks him.

Daeyeol is upset, and he demands answers and explanations and a lot of stuff from Sungyoon. But he does none of that, and launches himself on the younger man, hugging and clinging to him tightly.

By the end of the day they’re still friends. So that’s nice.

They’re sitting on some bench in the park when Sungyoon tells him why he was distant and cold in the winter. Daeyeol takes it all in like a sponge. He finds out Sungyoon had sleepless nights, days where he feels like dying, and the obvious social withdrawal on top of many other things. Daeyeol hugs him when he’s done talking.

“You’re probably going to leave me now.”

_“I would never.”_

“I’m a lot to handle.”

_“I’ve got big hands.”_ and he raises his right hand to Sungyoon. Sungyoon chuckles as he wipes his tears.

“I’m sorry I’m like this. I’m difficult, and overwhelming. It will be too much for you to handle.”

_“It won’t.”_

“Why do you say it like that? Like it’s easy?”

_“I’ve been through worse, I’m pretty sure I can handle you.”_

Sungyoon cries some more in his arms and they hug tightly.

 

ㅡ

 

 

When Daeyeol comes home, he researches online and reads everything about Sungyoon's condition.

It’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder, and there isn’t much information to work with. He reads stories from some people who have lived with someone who had it or people who actually suffered from it. By the time he’s done reading it’s already 3 in the morning.

 

ㅡ

 

 

Sungyoon during spring was as good as what he was in autumn. Maybe it was because they kissed more. Maybe it was because after months of not being with him, Sungyoon is now there, cuddling beside him in his bed on a lazy day. Maybe because it’s just Sungyoon.

Daeyeol's just woken up from a nightmare in his nap when he feels a hand in his back, and it’s Sungyoon rubbing circles and continuously telling him it’s just a dream, it’s okay.

He cries for the first time in front of Sungyoon, as his shaking hands tell him about the nightmare that never leaves him. The hellish nightmare when he was young that left him broken and made his lose the ability to speak for the rest of his life. Sungyoon comforts him and tells him that it’s okay and that it wasn’t Daeyeol's fault. When Daeyeol has calmed down now, he finally asks a question for the first time.

_“Did you know sign language before you met me?”_

Sungyoon smiles, eyes sparkling and full of light that Daeyeol thinks he can drown in them.

“No, I didn’t. It took me a whole summer to learn. When I found out, I began taking lessons so when the new school year begins, I can tell you to walk with me.”

Daeyeol cries again, and he knows he’s never going to love another person again as much as he loves Sungyoon at that moment, despite all his imperfections.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, hyung.”

 

ㅡ

 

 

The rest of spring rolls in like a breeze, and Daeyeol spent it well with Sungyoon. He's going to a community college ten minutes away from town in a few months time, and he’s making sure that before that happens he’s done everything he can for him.

It’s the end of spring that Sungyoon tells him he’s trying to get better, and Daeyeol hugs him tight and kisses him on the lips out of delight.

 

ㅡ

 

Their summer days are spent together, and Sungyoon returns as a lifeguard in the community swimming pool. Daeyeol knows Sungyoon needs more sunlight than anyone else in the entire planet, so he joins him there, frolicking in the pool splashing water in Sungyoon's feet when he walks by. He gets out of the pool when his skin is all wrinkly and Sungyoon laughs at him because he looks like a prune. The days get hotter, even more than it was last summer now that Sungyoon is there in his life. Sungyoon under the sun, laughing while displaying his glistening teeth and lean body and his collarbones. Sungyoon having more fun than he ever did when Daeyeol is there.

 

ㅡ

 

 

But then there are nights where Daeyeol has to hold the younger man, sweating under the humid summer night, telling him everything is going to be okay as Sungyoon fights for air as he visibly shakes in panic. He doesn’t leave Sungyoon alone and makes sure he’s okay throughout all that. When Sungyoon has calmed down and relaxed, he leans in Daeyeol's shoulder and they stay like that for minutes, what seems like hours.

Daeyeol knows he can’t actually tell Sungyoon how much he loves him despite his mental disorder, so he hopes his actions say it for him. How much he loves Sungyoon despite the moments where he never talked to him or acted like he was never a part of his life. How much he loves Sungyoon despite how he acted cold towards him. How much he loves Sungyoon that he’s willing to give his all, hoping that it will help Sungyoon.

 

ㅡ

 

 

When summer and autumn has passed and winter has rolled in, Daeyeol wakes up one snowy day to see Sungyoon sitting on the bottom of his bed. His hair is cut and black and his eyes are sparkling while looking at Daeyeol.

Daeyeol cries as he hugs Sungyoon, while Sungyoon thanks him.

He can feel Sungyoon's warmth despite the many layers, in the middle of winter, and that’s what matters most to him.

**Author's Note:**

> i had this old thing from before and when that daeyoon moment happened in spring again i knew this just had to be done uwu
> 
> i tried my best to be as close and realistic as possible with the elements I'm working at considering its a sensitive topic, and i still hope i was able to give justice to it. drop a comment or a kudos and let me know! thanks xoxo


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